This blog contains a number of simple money saving solutions I have discovered to potentially expensive repairs or replacements.
For Example:
Cleaning of the shower mould using domestos grot buster saved me hundreds of pounds, and the fact that it keeps the mould out of the caulk saves me hours of additional cleaning.

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Thursday, 8 October 2015

and as the answer is applicable across social media I've duplicated it here:

Would any closed/semi closed container work or does cardboard box have some magic in it?And this is my answer:

Hi thanks for the question. Plastic boxes tend to sweat inside and it all goes mouldy, thin paper boxes go soggy if any over ripen, so this sturdy thick box seems to work best. This is its second or possibly its third year. I hope this helps.

Wednesday, 7 October 2015

I can't believe how many tomatoes are still growing on the plants I planted, and on the wild ones, but with the help of my tomato tip (link at the end of the video) they are ripening well and are delicious. #fixed1tgardening

Tuesday, 22 September 2015

I decided to grow my own Comfrey and Nettles in the corner of the garden. Of course nettles are available everywhere but I discovered that finding Comfrey was very difficult and that garden centres which allegedly sold Comfrey seeds no longer do so. It could be that the quality of the Comfrey tea fertiliser meant that sales of expensive liquid feeds went down ;-) so they decided not to do it.

If you find some comfrey in the wild then if you steal a little of its roots, from a chunk of root you'll get a whole new plant. I got my chunk of Comfrey Root from a professional gardener on a nursing course I attended, she hacked off the root for me, which was about 4 inches long and about 1 inch thick.

She advised to plant it in a pot but warned it could break out, so as can be seen in the picture below:

I planted it in a huge solid plastic tub from which it hasn't 'Triffid Like' escaped. She said if it gets free it would take over very rapidly and spread. I decided to do the same for the stinging nettle, it too is in a pot. Both are doing well and have produced the goods this year.

So if your thinking of following suit and growing your own Comfrey I recommend you do the same, pot it in an indestructible plastic pot, so it can't escape.

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

I've been growing potatoes in specially purchased 'Potato Grow Bags' for many years. The crops aren't particularly large but they are delicious and its very easy and rewarding to do and something that the kids could do with a little help and supervision.

This year I started the chitting and planting process with 4 new Potato Grow Bags and put three chitting potato tubers in each bag. After planting the tubers in the bags, I realised I had a number of spares left over and rather than throw them away, I thought it would be interesting to grow the remainder in the empty plastic bags the new compost came in. These bags tend to be very thick painted on the outside by most importantly Black and None See Through on the inside. I planted them all at the same time, using the same feed and water regime and harvested them when the plants had died back leaving thick white stems sticking out of the bags, within a few days of each other.

Although not a scientific experiment, in this way I could see whether the planting bag made any difference to the crop yield, i.e. if you got more potatoes for the extra cost of the 'Potato Grow Bag' versus the black painted compost bag.

After brushing the loose earth of the potatoes I weighed them, the black plastic compost bag delivered a crop of:

After brushing the loose earth of the potatoes I weighed them, the black plastic compost bag delivered a crop of:

1245 grams of fresh potatoes (just over 2 lb 7 oz)

1406 - 1245 = 161grams (just over .35 lb)

There the using the potato grow bag increased the yield by just over 11%.

Therefore, from this casual experiment I concluded that the potato grow bags are better than black plastic bags for growing potatoes, but given the sized of the crop, and the additional expenses of the bags, it is more cost effective to grow the potatoes using the Compost Bag than it is to invest in specialised Potato Grow Bags.

In this video I show you the results after just 3 days of following the fixed1t How To instructions I gave in Video 1. If you haven't seen video 1 don't worry a link will appear towards to end of the video. #fixed1tgardening

The majority of what we think we see is actually from memory, and this leaves us open to simple deception by familiarity, i.e. you see something you've seen before and your mind assumes it knows what it is. So we can easily be exploited by clever marketing and sales tactics. Here is one I found, do you have other examples?

Wednesday, 2 September 2015

If you watched my first Potato video, you’ll remember that I bought custom Potato Growing Sacks to grow Potatoes in, and I harvested them and weighed them in video 1. At the same time I planted three Potato tubers in the Potato Growing Sack I planted 3 others in the plastic bag the compost came in for devilish comparison. If you haven't seen the previous video, click on the link below:Harvesting Home Grown Potatoes From My Potato Grow Bag SackHere is the video of the Compost Bag Harvesting.

Saturday, 8 August 2015

If you have and use a garden strimmer / grass trimmer then this fixed1t Money Saving Tip will save you money and a lot a wasted time, I've done this for years saving lots of money, now I'm sharing it with you. #fixed1ttip

Sunday, 10 May 2015

In the last 24 hours the Ants have consumed 16 small trays of Nippon Ant Liquid

Trays Full Of Ants Eating Nippon Ant Liquid

and are no longer visiting my front door and hallway as can be seen from the latest photo below.

After 24 hours of Intense Nippon Ant Liquid Feeding The Ants Are Gone

This was the largest feeding frenzy I've seen with seasonal Ants, as they normally arrive over several days in small be increasing numbers until they are filling one or two trays a dozen or so at a time.

These ants were also much redder than ones I'd seen in the house before, and as I have a number of inflamed red bites on me from getting down and personal with them, I think they could be a problem for a curious child or adult that gets near them. As can be seen from the videos, these Ants came on mass, with soldiers to protect the feeders, once the first feeders reported back to the nests. It would appear it must have been a substantial nest and that the warm weather has obviously woken a lot of them early.

I'm glad I still had some Nippon Ant Liquid at hand as Debbie was only able to find single use kits from Rentokill that you throw any when empty in stores. There is a link is below to the single use Rentokill product if you don't want the fuss.

I could have purchased another Nippon kits online, consisting of trays and liquid but I would then be paying several pounds just for a couple of plastic trays that I would end up using and losing or discarding when dirty.

Much better to buy the cheap Nippon Liquid from Amazon using the link below:

#fixed1t

Realistically, and from the video evidence of my last 3 posts on this blog, I think I'd have needed 6 of these double single use packs for what I achieved yesterday.

So I recommend you buy some Nippon Liquid.

Don't wait until the Ants arrive!

If you haven't got any Nippon Liquid in the house get some ASAP, be ready, it keeps for years. If the Ants discover the food in your kitchen, your pets food or storeroom and you have no defences to hand, they will over run you very quickly and be in every container, draw or packet they can squeeze into.

Luckily the liquid is still available on Amazon, but I suspect not for very long and as there is more money in selling single use kits, a lot more money all the big resellers are moving to kits. I have no doubt fighting last nights invasion would have cost me £30 + petrol in single use kits.

Ants Update: On the 8th feed and theirs numbers are growing, have quite a few bites on my hands so they Red Dark Brown Ants seem to pack quite a punch. Better feed them again before going to bed of they could be all over the kitchen by morning.

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This video is of the 5th refill and their numbers are increasing. oops. Can't stop now as they'll invade completely if I do.

Picture Of Ants Feeding On Nippon Liquid From Bottle Top Feeding Trays

Friday, 1 May 2015

The low light levels and cold over the winter will have depleted the rechargeable batteries inside your LED garden lamps. It doesn't mean their dead just because they aren't lighting up. Get you kids, grand kids, parents or grand parents to help open them up and clean them out as per this video. Then before you put them back together put the cleaned up battery in a battery charger to top it up and give it life and it will hopefully last another season.

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

This video is about How To Fix Wasteful Over Filling Problem On A Dual Flush Toilet. Mine was wasting lots of water by continuing to fill and throwing water down the overfill pipe. This video identifies the problem a shows my #fixed1ttip zero cost fix.

About Me

When I couldn't fix a fuzz box, I decided to build a synth on the grounds that once I'd built a synth a fuzz box repair would be kids play.. I was right and I'm still building synths. Along the way I learned about technology, chips, electronics, programming, music, mental health, Artificial Intelligence and Robots.

I've run companies, developed companies and turned around failing businesses.